Vanessa bell, p.52
Vanessa Bell, page 52
By the following March Vanessa was well enough to travel by herself to Roquebrune to stay with the Simon Bussys, Duncan having gone to Ireland on the invitation of the Duchess of Devonshire. Vanessa was pleased to find herself once again at the villa set on the hillside overlooking the sweep of the bay. Its garden was already full of roses as well as the forever ripening lemons and oranges. The house, too, she found sympathetic, with its many books and pictures and the recent addition of Gide’s deathmask. ‘Only I don’t think people realize how much solitude painters want,’ she wrote to Angelica. ‘They seem rather surprised if one vanishes for an hour or two. Not that I’ve done much here.’49 She did, however, make a trip to Antibes to see Picasso’s pottery and to Vence to see the chapel decorated by Matisse. The former she liked more than she had expected, but the latter she found disappointing; the large line drawings on the white tiles seemed to her a failure and she disliked the colours in the stained glass windows. Dorothy Bussy, who accompanied her, could not get over her horror that Matisse, who admitted to no Christian beliefs, had accepted the commission. With Dorothy and Janie, Vanessa returned to Paris but no sooner had they arrived in the city than news reached them of Simon’s stroke. Mother and daughter returned immediately to Roquebrune and shortly afterwards Vanessa learnt of Simon’s death.
Over the years Vanessa’s and Duncan’s ‘sublime ineptitude’ with cars had remained unchanged. Duncan always looked startled by the noise of the engine and seemed uncertain whether the car would move forwards, backwards or sideways. ‘Duncan, do be careful,’ Vanessa would repeatedly murmur, not unadvisedly. Nevertheless in the spring of 1955 they safely steered their way across France to Asolo in Italy where they rented a house belonging to the Marchesa Fossi. It was called ‘La Mura’, being partly built into the ancient wall of the town, and had old wooden beams, solid walls and large rooms; upstairs one with windows on three sides made a perfect studio. Two women were employed to look after the house, and Vanessa and Duncan arrived to find the beds already made and the shopping done. Still more important, the place offered Vanessa many subjects to paint: ‘Of course the light is so amazing, everything is colour and definite and exciting.’50
Soon after they settled in they were joined by Edward le Bas and Eardley Knollys. The latter had recently taken up painting and hoped to learn much from Duncan and Vanessa during the course of the holiday. He quickly perceived that though they talked a great deal about painting in general, they rarely discussed each other’s; it was just possible to make a passing remark on Duncan’s paintings, but Vanessa froze any discussion of her own. Knollys also noticed that Duncan painted a little too readily, putting up his easel in front of any motif without much forethought; and that Vanessa regarded everything he did as good.
They did a little sight-seeing. One visit took them to the Villa Maser where Vanessa admired the Veronese frescos; another trip to Venice enabled her to revise her opinions on Tintoretto in the Scuola di San Rocco: she now concluded that his Crucifixion was one of the greatest pictures in the world. Her companions, meanwhile, remarked on her meticulous housekeeping and her accounting for every expenditure, a habit that her father had instilled in her. She wanted to buy a coffee percolator and went to great lengths to find the right shape, size and price. Though le Bas kept saying that one could easily be acquired at Harrods, she insisted that it had to be bought abroad. He and Knollys were equally surprised at her dread of society; when they invited Freya Stark, who lived opposite, and one of her guests in for a drink, Vanessa was unable to paint at all that day, though when evening came and the guests arrived she relaxed and enjoyed their company.
On their drive back through France Duncan and Vanessa stopped at Alizay, outside Rouen, to visit Amaryllis who was staying with a family in order to learn French. They took her for lunch in a nearby restaurant and afterwards sat in a boat on a river eating cherries. Duncan fell asleep while the other two talked, Amaryllis gradually releasing all her anxieties and unhappiness, caused less by the family than by her extreme shyness: she longed for cheese, but as she had refused it on her first evening was never offered any; she was afraid to speak French and therefore rarely talked to anyone and feared that her mouth was shrinking. Vanessa did what she could to put things right when they returned that evening.
While at Asolo Vanessa had heard that Saxon Sydney-Turner was moving into an old people’s home. That summer she gave up 26a Canon-bury Square and moved back to Bloomsbury, into Saxon’s former flat at 28 Percy Street. Closer to shops, picture galleries and friends (Helen Anrep had a flat on the other side of the street), it was more suited to their needs, but had first to be thoroughly cleaned and whitewashed as Saxon’s life had sadly deteriorated and been made impecunious by his addiction to betting. When a number of his friends got up enough money to buy him a television and radio combined, Vanessa illuminated for him a sheet with all the names of the subscribers. In the autumn of 1955 she and Duncan moved into the new flat and soon after received news of the birth of Quentin’s and Olivier’s daughter, Virginia.
The Percy Street flat remained a pied-à-terre. Vanessa’s life was still centred at Charleston where in the mornings she was often the first to arrive down to breakfast. She would drink a cup of coffee, sprinkle her buttered toast with salt and then have the first of the three cigarettes which she allowed herself a day. She would gaze abstractedly out of the window, engage a little in conversation with the others, give Grace her orders and then disappear to her studio, situated at the top of the house with its view out across the valley to the Weald, the distant horizons amplifying her detachment. At four she would descend from her studio and, if guests were present, go into the kitchen and make scones. If her grandchildren were staying they would watch as she took off her rings and rubbed the very minimum of butter into the flour with her long fingers. During this period, apart from two Italianate concrete pots made by Quentin for the gateposts, the house did not greatly change. But to the visitor its qualities never seemed to tire or fade but always gave a shock of unexpected pleasure. It had also a unique smell, a compound of turpentine, toast, apples and cut flowers.
The paintings in the house, on the walls, in the racks or left unstretched, continued to accumulate. In February 1956 the Adams Gallery in London gave Vanessa an exhibition which sold well. When Angelica praised the show, Vanessa was touched, admitting that it mattered more to her that her children should think her paintings good than anyone. She had no conception of the public and exhibitions were never her goal: she painted primarily for herself. The initial impulse began with something seen - light on the garden path, reflections in glass or polished wood, a colour chord created by the juxtaposition of fruit with bowl and cloth. As she painted, the intense concentration needed to translate visual impressions into pictorial facts carried her, as she once said, ‘into a world quite remote from one’s human one.’51 She brooded over paintings, as Virginia observed, for refreshment because they occupied the timeless realm of the imagination and therefore opposed the endless drift of life. Only in this other world could she become reconciled to the fact of Julian’s death. Her often small, serene late still lifes draw their strength not only from a lifetime’s experience of painting but also from the fact that they were set against this appalling and undiminishing sense of loss.
Despite the inner richness of experience that she now brought to her work, she still looked with interest at the paintings of others. She was generally critical of the young and still felt a particular dislike for the work of Graham Sutherland, whose reputation was now at its height. On a visit to the Whitechapel Art Gallery in May 1956, however, she was impressed by the work of Nicolas de Staël, of whom she had not previously heard. She missed seeing the American art exhibition at the Tate Gallery in 1956 where one room was devoted to Abstract Expressionism, nor did she see its follow-up, the 1959 exhibition devoted entirely to this large-scale abstract art, but she was aware of the excitement it caused. ‘I couldn’t go to the American show unluckily,’ she wrote to Angelica in 1959, ‘which didn’t sound to me as though I should like it as much as you did. The only one I’ve seen was Jackson Pollock whom I didn’t really think very good. But I suppose one will see them one day. I cannot somehow believe they are really a nation of painters though I think they are writers.’52
In March 1956, on the suggestion of John Piper, Duncan was asked to design sets for John Blow’s opera Venus and Adonis, performed that summer by the English Opera Group at the Aldeburgh Festival. On the day of the first night Duncan and Vanessa lunched at the Red House, the home of the composer Benjamin Britten and the singer Peter Pears. Vanessa not only admired the collection of paintings that hung in the house but also her host: ‘Britten himself is obviously very intelligent and interested in all kinds of things besides music. Also I liked his elder sister, a funny little ugly creature who doesn’t live with him but seemed devoted to him.’53 They met the artist Mary Potter who lived in a studio built in the garden of the Red House, and on their next visit, in 1959, went all over her home looking at her paintings. The following year their visit was returned: Potter, Britten and Pears had decided to forgo a holiday abroad in favour of Sussex and Surrey. As Britten felt a little apprehensive of meeting Clive Bell, the three friends had a drink in a pub before arriving at Charleston. Duncan and Vanessa were waiting in the porch when their guests finally arrived, and greeted them with the apology that Clive was away. More drinks were gladly accepted and the five of them went in to lunch. Afterwards the guests sat in the garden and announced their intention of spending some nights in Brighton, horrifying Vanessa with the thought of its pier, band, candyfloss and crowds.
To her friends Vanessa seemed to live a little outside time: the length of her skirts did not vary according to fashion; she had developed a fondness for scarves and shawls and still wore her hair pulled back either side of her narrow head into a bun. In a late self-portrait, painted in 1958, she looked at herself with unflinching severity§. The unbroken outlines of each form enfold the sitter. The still design increases the fixity of her stare. She observes herself dispassionately and without comment. Shorn of self-pity, the residuum of suffering this portrait expresses is contained, as if made manageable through restraint. The confrontation, however, is not only with herself, or the spectator, but ultimately with the approach of death.
In 1952 Desmond MacCarthy died. A year later his wife Molly, having a few months earlier declared that she, like the garden produce, was ‘nearly over’, also died. In 1956 Vanessa visited Nan Hudson on her deathbed in a nursing-home in Kilburn and found her raving about Napoleon, convinced she was back at her home in Normandy. When in August 1957 one of Duncan’s former boy-friends Peter Morris returned to England, having been out of the country for almost twenty years, Vanessa felt as if he had come back from the dead. Instead of the former rich young man there now appeared a silver-haired, rather poor, anxious gentleman, still, however, generous, charming and affectionate. He had brought with him the daughter of a friend in an attempt to distract her from an affair with an undesirable young man. He and the girl joined Vanessa and Duncan that October in Venice, where a small group of their friends gathered: Raymond Mortimer, Eardley Knollys, Barbara Bagenal and Clive. Vanessa still found it hard to tolerate Barbara. ‘She didn’t actually dance on the Bridge of Sighs, as some expected,’ she commented acidly to Angelica, ‘but she tripped it merrily on the Zattere, she talked endlessly and with emphasis, and eventually Clive most wickedly asked me and Duncan and Peter who were going for a pleasant day’s outing to Torcello and Burano, to take her with us, in her presence. So there was no escaping it.’54
The following year Grace followed in her footsteps and made her first visit to Venice, in the company of her friends Ruby Weller and Mrs Harland. Duncan completed his Lincoln Cathedral decorations, which naturally won Vanessa’s approval: ‘I think they looked lovely, most brilliant, glowing colour, with a wonderful view of Lincoln and the Italian shops with wool, and Olivia, Angelica, Julian and I looking on at the handsome young men.’55 At the same time she was delighted to discover that her granddaughter Nerissa, one of Angelica’s twins, had gifts as a painter. The following year Quentin was offered the post of senior lecturer in art at the University of Leeds (and two years later was given a Chair), and in April 1959, before their move, his and Olivier’s second daughter, Cressida, was born. Clive also seemed to prosper (though he complained it now took him two hours to get up in the mornings) and on his annual visit to France visited Picasso at his house outside Cannes and dined with Somerset Maugham.
Towards the end of 1958 preparations began for Duncan’s Tate Gallery retrospective which opened the following April. Martin Butlin and Dennis Farr arrived at Charleston to discuss the selection, lunched at the round table in the dining-room and afterwards made a courtesy call to Lydia at Tilton.
I remember seeing a Picasso drawing [Denis Farr has recalled] fluttering on the mantelpiece in the warm air currents thrown up by a blazing log fire. I expected it to fall into the flames any moment but Lady Keynes seemed totally oblivious of any danger.
When the show opened the rheumatism in Vanessa’s knees prevented her from attending the private view. But a few days later she went round the show with Clive and was given tea in the Rex Whistler restaurant by Butlin and Farr, as the latter goes on to describe:
We both felt such babes entertaining these two pillars of Bloomsbury ... and I remember her warning me not to take David Garnett’s stories about Blooms-bury too seriously. ... She said he had a very fertile imagination! The Bells seemed to me to be very reticent and, if I am not imagining things in retrospect, somewhat tense.56
On this occasion Vanessa probably feared seeing Rothenstein (then Director of the Tate). She blamed him for the selection which she thought ‘idiotic’ and the retrospective, despite its prestigious venue, did nothing to lessen her antipathy towards him. E.M. Forster was also unsatisfied: ‘The Duncan Grant show was a disappointment, too big and ill chosen, none of Ben’s [Benjamin Britten’s] sailors or of Harry Daley [the policeman].’57
Vanessa was also aware at this date that Janie Bussy was somewhat less than happy. For some time she had regretted the demands made upon Janie by her fast-ageing mother and her Strachey aunts. On one occasion Vanessa caught sight of Janie shopping in Marchmont Street and thought her quite changed, stouter and looking more decidedly French. ‘I must say I often think females are downtrodden even now,’ she wrote to Angelica. ‘If Janie were a son no one would ever have expected her to do anything but paint - and the poor creature hasn’t children to make any of it worthwhile. She can only have real freedom after all her relations have died it seems.’58 Clive also saw what Janie suffered: ‘She bears up nobly; but one can’t lead the life she has to lead without showing it. Pain will be paid quite as much as pleasure [sic]. She can’t face taking Dorothy back to Roquebrune and seems not quite to know what is to happen to La Suco [Souco] this winter. She has offered it to Vanessa and Duncan; but they procrastinate. Someone she feels must live there to prevent the roof falling in.’59
The reason they havered over taking La Souco for the winter was Vanessa’s poor health. Early in 1959 she had contracted bronchial pleurisy which left her in a frail condition. She resigned from the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Trust Fund and shrank from making visits to London. Instead she began a large group portrait of Angelica and her four daughters, Amaryllis, Henrietta, Nerissa and Fanny, striving again for a monumental design. The result was a strange pastiche of an eighteenth-century conversation piece. The figures appear expressionless, doll-like and wooden. There is a curious absence of any real feeling and instead a substitute, morbid sentimentality. Nevertheless this painting was sent this year to the Royal West of England Academy’s annual exhibition and, at £300, the most expensive picture in the show, went unsold.
By January 1960 Vanessa had recovered her strength enough to travel to Roquebrune by train with Duncan and Grace. At La Souco they were assisted by a woman who came each day to do the shopping and housework. Nevertheless the holiday began a little gloomily and Vanessa, like the stray cat that haunted the villa, did not wish to leave the house and garden. They looked through Simon Bussy’s paintings which Janie had put in order in the studio, and waited for the garden to burst into flower. Among the many books in the house Vanessa found a volume of Thackeray’s letters and papers, which she fell upon, hoping to encounter her Aunt Anny as she read. She also painted, and in December 1960 The Garden Window, Roquebrune hung at the Royal West of England Academy.
When Clive and Barbara Bagenal arrived at nearby Menton, where they put up in an hotel, they thought the inhabitants of La Souco seemed dismal. ‘Duncan would enjoy himself immensely and would dearly like to join us in little restaurants and make acquaintance with our acquaintances. But V. seems to have no idea of going beyond the garden; and Duncan can’t very well leave her alone - we can’t very well invite him alone either. Later Angelica and Edward le Bas are coming out - perhaps Peter Morris too - then the situation will become easier.’60 It became clear that Vanessa was losing her grip on practical matters, which had always been her concern. This worried Duncan and his usual serenity was replaced by a cantankerous grumpiness. The arrival of Peter Morris, then Angelica, improved matters. The latter hired a car and this enabled them all to go out on the motif’ or in to Menton to dine with Clive and Barbara in small restaurants. Vanessa enjoyed these outings, but remained quiet and passive. Early in March Angelica returned to her family and Clive wrote to Frances Partridge: ‘Her stay at Le Suco [La Souco] was a great pleasure to everyone. She took complete charge of the establishment and effected change for the better in every department: hired a car and drove it admirably (Duncan now drives it less skilfully so far as I can judge): went off for a day’s shopping in Ventimiglia market with Barbara and Grace - a great success - gave extensive orders for desirables and much needed comestibles and appliances: rang up several veterinary surgeons ... in fact made things hum and attracted numerous admirers.’61
